


Soften the Blow

by domesticadventures



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Coda, Communication, Episode: s12e13 Family Feud, Love Confessions, M/M, POV Dean Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-26
Updated: 2017-02-26
Packaged: 2018-09-27 02:58:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9948977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/domesticadventures/pseuds/domesticadventures
Summary: Cas picks up the phone halfway through the second ring. “Dean?” he says. “Is everything all right?”“I love you,” Dean says. Cas inhales sharply on the other end of the line. “And I don’t have any bad news to follow that up with.”“I--” Cas says. “What?”“Getting real tired of people telling me that just to soften the blow,” Dean says. He hangs up, heart racing.





	

Cas picks up the phone halfway through the second ring. “Dean?” he says. “Is everything all right?”

“I love you,” Dean says. Cas inhales sharply on the other end of the line. “And I don’t have any bad news to follow that up with.”

“I--” Cas says. “What?”

“Getting real tired of people telling me that just to soften the blow,” Dean says. He hangs up, heart racing.

Cas calls back within seconds, phone vibrating in Dean’s hand until it finally sends Cas to voicemail. He rejects the next two calls, and after that, Cas stops trying.

Dean paces around his room as his heart starts to slow. He’s feeling almost normal by the time Sam knocks on his door.

“Yeah,” Dean says, slipping his phone into his back pocket.

Sam pushes the door open far enough to lean in and look Dean up and down. “So, uh,” he says. “Everything okay?”

“Just great,” Dean says. He even manages a smile.

Sam doesn’t close the door like Dean was hoping he would. Instead, he pushes it open even further and leans against the frame, arms crossed. “Dude,” he says. “What the hell did you say to Cas?”

Dean snorts. “What are you talking about?” he says. “I--”

“He called me,” Sam says. “Said you freaked him out.”

“I told him everything was fine,” Dean says.

Sam rolls his eyes. “Well, you can reassure him in person, seeing as he’s on his way here.” He unfolds his arms and retreats back down the hallway, leaving Dean standing by himself, mouth agape.

Dean’s heart has relocated to somewhere in the vicinity of his throat. “What the fuck was I thinking?” he asks his empty room.

\--

Dean spends the next few hours trying to figure out what the hell he’s supposed to do. He considers peacing out, driving off to some bar or finding a case so he won’t have to be here when Cas arrives. He toys with the idea of pretending to be asleep. He thinks about finding a book to read or a movie to watch or anything, really, that will give him an excuse to delay the inevitable conversation with Cas.

The problem is that he knows Cas, for all his eye rolling and long suffering sighs, has almost infinite patience when it comes to Dean. If it comes down to out stubborning one another, Cas is going to win that battle every time.

Instead, he tries to decide how relaxed he wants to look when Cas shows up. Should he leave the door open? Or should he close it and force Cas to knock? Should he be reclining in his bed or sitting at his desk? Or maybe he shouldn’t be in his room at all -- maybe he should be in the kitchen, cooking something even though he’s already eaten dinner, so that when Cas comes in he’ll at least have the buffer of the island between them.

Nothing he can come up with seems ideal, which is why he’s sitting on the edge of his bed with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hand when Cas says, “Dean.”

He looks up. Cas is standing in his open doorway with his hands in his pockets, glaring at him. Dean can feel his stupid heart pounding again. “Can I help you?” he asks.

“Did you think if you didn’t pick up the phone you wouldn’t have to address what you said?” Cas asks.

“I dunno,” Dean says, looking down at his knees, “did you think if you died you wouldn’t have to? Did you think if you stayed away you wouldn’t have to?”

“I thought it wouldn’t matter,” Cas says.

Dean scoffs as he looks up at Cas. “You thought it wouldn’t matter? Are you serious?”

“Why would I make things harder on you by making you feel obligated to let me down gently,” Cas says. “Why would I make things harder on myself by seeing you every day knowing you didn’t feel the same.”

“You didn’t know that,” Dean says.

Cas hesitates for a moment. “I thought I did.”

“You could have asked,” Dean says.

Cas exhales sharply. “Oh, and you would have given me a straight answer?”

“I--”

“Don’t lie to me,” Cas interrupts.

“I wasn’t--”

“Don’t,” Cas says. He pauses and takes a deep breath. He continues, “You’ve always done things in your own time. In your own way. Which often happens to be the most frustrating way imaginable. For example.” He gestures between them.

Dean shrugs. He looks down at his hands.

Cas sighs. “What is this about?”

“What is what about?”

“Don’t play dumb with me,” Cas says. Dean can hear the eyeroll in his voice.

Dean picks at a thread in his jeans. “Mom just told us she’s working with the Brits,” he says. “And I just. I dunno. I want to understand, but it keeps feeling like a betrayal.”

“You know I betrayed you before, too,” Cas says, voice softer now.

“I’m sorry, is that supposed to be comforting?” Dean asks.

“It’s supposed to show that you can still be family even when people disappoint you,” Cas says. “Even if the things they do turn out to be a mistake, which we don’t even know if this is.”

“Yet,” Dean says.

“Yet,” Cas allows. “But she did tell you. She trusts you. That’s important.”

Dean swallows hard. He closes his hand into his fist, tapping it on his leg. “She told me she loved me over the phone,” Dean says, “and that’s how I knew something was up. It felt like shit.”

“So this is what?” Cas asks. “Payback?”

That stings more than Dean wants it to. “No,” he says. “I just-- I dunno.”

“You felt justified,” Cas says, “in using those words as a weapon.”

Dean feels his face flush. “Yeah, well,” he mutters. “I guess it feels like that’s how they’re being used against me.”

Cas contemplates the side of Dean’s face for a long moment. Finally, he says, “Can I come in?”

“Yeah,” Dean says.

Cas walks into Dean’s room and sits next to him on the bed. Dean doesn’t look at him. “I didn’t mean for it to hurt you,” Cas says quietly. “But it did. I’m sorry.”

Dean sighs. “I know. I’m sorry too. I guess I was being, uh. Kind of…”

“Childish?” Cas supplies.

“Yeah,” Dean says.

“For what it’s worth,” Cas says, “now I wish I had said it sooner.”

Dean’s heart starts racing again. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Cas says.

Dean takes a deep breath. “Can we have a do-over?”

“I would like that,” Cas says.

“Okay,” Dean says. There’s a few long moments of silence as Cas waits for him to continue. “Uh,” Dean chokes out, “can you go first?”

Dean startles at the sudden feel of Cas’ hand on his own, but he doesn’t pull away as Cas curls his fingers around Dean’s palm and brushes against his knuckles with his thumb. He says, low and earnest, “Dean. I love you.”

Dean lets out a shaky breath. He looks up at the ceiling, bouncing his leg against the floor. He turns his hand over, laces his fingers with Cas’, and says, “Yeah, well. I love you, too.”

When Dean finally manages to glance over at Cas, he’s wearing one of those small, pleased, private smiles he doles out only sparingly, most of them to Dean.

“What happens next?” Cas asks.

Dean’s not quite sure, but with the way Cas is looking at him, he knows it’s going to be something good.


End file.
